Duke lacrosse trounces Georgetown 19-7

Junior Brendan Fowler ranks eighth in the country with a 60.8 faceoff percentage.

When then-No. 18 Georgetown hosted then-No. 10 Duke last season, the Hoyas put together a 5-0 fourth-quarter run but fell two goals short of upsetting the Blue Devils. This year, they didn’t even come close.

“We were delighted that we played well for 60 minutes,” Blue Devil head coach John Danowski said.

Never trailing, Duke (7-4) dictated the tempo of the game from the opening whistle. The Blue Devils had the possession advantage, with faceoff men Brendan Fowler, Charlie Payton, Henry Meyer and Jack Rowe combining to win 20-of-30 faceoffs. Junior Jordan Wolf and senior David Lawson led the charge against the Hoyas (3-5) with four and three goals, respectively. The closest that Georgetown came to staging a comeback was posting back-to-back goals in the second and fourth quarters.

On the defensive end of the field, the Blue Devils held Georgetown’s leading scorer, sophomore Reilly O’Connor, scoreless. Sophomore goaltender Kyle Turri registered five saves and let in four goals for Duke through the first three periods of action. Freshman Luke Aaron and sophomore Ben Krebs combined for three saves and three goals allowed in the fourth quarter. The Blue Devil defense struggled in the final period, failing to clear the ball twice and giving up a pair of goals, including a man-up score, in the last minute of the game.

“We were disappointed that we gave up a couple of goals at the end,” Danowski said. “As a unit, we want to be better.”

After recording a season-high 14 assists against Marist Monday, Duke continued its exceptional ball-sharing in Saturday’s game, in which 13 of the Blue Devils’ 19 goals were assisted. Senior Josh Offit led the team in assists with three, while Lawson and juniors Josh Dionne and Christian Walsh added two apiece. Danowski noted that because Georgetown’s defense slides quickly to the man with the ball, sharing it well was essential to the Blue Devils’ offensive success against the Hoyas.

“We put the ball on each other’s sticks, which was really great and helped us out a lot,” Lawson said. “Everyone was involved, and it was a lot of fun playing that way.”

Duke’s teamwork was on display when freshman Case Matheis set up classmate Myles Jones for the first goal of the game. The Blue Devils scored three more assisted goals to take a 4-0 lead before Georgetown junior Jeff Fountain put one away with 21 seconds remaining in the period to give the Hoyas much-needed fuel heading into the second quarter. They didn’t build on it, however, surrendering six Blue Devil goals in the second period while only scoring two of their own.

The second half didn’t start off any prettier for Georgetown, as Duke exploded for six unanswered tallies in the third period. O’Connor found senior Jason McFadden for a goal with 1:12 left in the quarter, and this time, the Hoyas carried the momentum into the final period, going 5-for-7 at the faceoff X in the fourth quarter and scoring three goals. Unable to overcome the 12-goal deficit they faced heading into the final period, they succumbed to their fifth loss of the season.

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